Hi Guys,

I’m in a bit of a tough spot where I had a coolant leak which caused the engine to overheat and the Head Gasket damaged. YIKES !!! I KNOW !!!
The shop I have it at (not a mini or bmw dealership) recommended replacing the engine as it might be warped and I would end up spending a lot in Labor anyways.

I was at a Mini dealership about 1.5 months ago and they did detect the thermostat leak but nothing about a gasket leak. I did not do the thermostat repair since I was going to do it myself later. The coolant got very low and the car stalled on me a week or so ago.
I have had it diagnosed at two different places so far and the first one said that the water pump and the alternate water pump also need to be replaced apart from the gasket leak and the thermostat

I googled some of this and saw that there is a class action law suite around Mini for the water pumps and this is a known problem with the Coolant system.

Here is some background on the car -
It is a 2013 Mini Cooper S Coupe. It has about 30,000 miles on it as of now. It is not in factory warranty.

I’m not sure what I should do at this point but had some questions:
1) Is this a potential Lemon law case? Worth looking into?
2) Does this get covered under the extended powertrain warranty or anything else?

I bought the car at $18.5K and the repairs are estimated at $8000 right now (including a used engine with 35K miles + thermostat + labor + Misc.)
3) Financially what is the best option? Should I get it repair it or write it off completely?
4) Any other advice???

I know this is a lot so thanks in advance for any help.

PS - I hope I’m posting this in the right place.

 

why cant they just fill it back up and run the car and see what it does?

my car overheated and I drove it for 2 or 3 miles before i got to a local store, bought coolant, filled and drove back home another 20 miles. I forgot to put a C clamp back when I rebuilt the engine.

where are you located?

 

At this point with the Head gasket leak if I drive it then I will warp the engine if that has already happened and there is no alternative but to replace the head gasket (labor intensive job) or get a replacement engine. Its better to replace it since there may be potential warping on the engine (I’ve been told).

I am located in Minneapolis, Minnesota and the car is at Immola Inc which is a reputable shop.

 

it is easy for any shop to just replace and get paid...reputation is another string used to persuade the customer of their "finding".

Personally, I know you too, we work hard for our money and I'm not going to give it someone just because! Sorry for the passion... how did they determine the HG is leaking? how long did you drive it after you got the high temp indicator ( by the way, you get a power reduction with that to alert you and you wont be going as fast)?

it is much cheaper to replace the HG and even the cyl head. I say this from my humble experience...check my profile.

 

I appreciate the passion

The head gasket leak was detected as there was misfire and they were looking at the spark plugs and coils and found coolant there.

I did get a power reduction but I was on the way home and my drive is about 33 miles. I had about 15 left when i got the power reduction but there were no warning signs at the time. The check engine light came on after another 10 - 12 miles and since I was almost home I did not stop. The engine stalled on me after I had exited the high way and was at a stop light. I had it towed to my house after that. Less than 3 miles form my house?

Was I being careless and should have stopped earlier? In hindsight YES but I don’t know enough about the technicality of cars that it could have been this extensive. :(

And when you say it is much cheaper to replace the gasket and the cylinder head then what about the possibility of warp? does that have further implications?

 

First, sorry to read about your problem. The N18 is a pretty good engine, especially compared to the N14 it replaced.

Second, how attached are you to the car. The real question is do you want to keep it? I don't think anyone but you can answer your question about writing it off.

So assume you take the option to fix it. Here's what I would do. Have your mechanic pull the head. Have it inspected/checked for damage, warpage, etc. If that is ok, then inspect/check the cylinders for damage. It is possible that there is no damage and then you are just in for replacing the head gasket. As you noted you will have to also replace the thermostat, water pump and the aux water pump.

I know that this puts you at risk of spending money that will be "lost" if the engine is "toast", but on the other hand if you jump right in and put a used engine in and you didn't need to you have also lost money.

If you do fix the engine (one way or the other) and keep the car, buy a ScanGageII and hook it up permanently. You will be able to read water temp and oil temp directly from the computer. That way you will have a heads-up to impending problems. BMW/MINI should really be faulted for not putting gauges into their cars. My 2006 Wrangler even has gauges in it. One of the things I found by having a ScanGage hooked up was that on the track I was overheating the oil. I had to push on the dealer to look into this and it turned out that the aux water pump had died and the turbo was cooking the oil.

Lastly, have you tried search on overheated Gen II MINIs? That might give you more insight as to what to do. I am sure you are not the first to overheat their MINI.

Good luck with it. And let us know how it goes.

 

Thank you so much for all that input. I love my car but I have owned it only for 9 months since I bought it used. I don’t mind selling it and I probably will end up doing that. If I do keep it I will be sure to buy a ScanGageII and hook it up permanently.

I’m going to call the shop and have them quote me the cost to pull the head and have the inspection done and at that point take a decision on If I want to risk this additional cost with the potential of savings or just swallow the pill and get the engine replaced.
The previous shop I had it at did quote me 27 hours of labor If i remember correctly for the repair so I’m not very optimistic but definitely worth getting a quote for the inspection per what you said.

I have not looked into overheated Gen II MINIs. I will do that right away.

 

Quick question - how much time would it take for this inspection per what you described?

 

At 30K, it is pretty early to have major engine problems and furthermore with the N18 engine. $8K is a lot of money to put on a car you just bought 9 months ago for mostly $19K.


If the cylinders and crankcase have been contaminated with coolant, the engine need to be replaced without question since you drove it until it seized.


I would try to find the maintenance history to figure what is the car's background and if its worth to save and fix or just get rid of before other problems arise.


I have 41K and everything is going fine but I am the original owner from new and the car has always been serviced and maintained at the dealership. I will ask for a full inspection before the end of the warranty by next July and see what I will do.


Stories like yours make me scary since I never trusted MINI's reputation for engine and electrical problems as well as quality control.

 

Sorry, I don’t really know. Guessing an hour or 2? Best to get this from your mechanic or a machine shop. You could do a Google YouTube search to see what is involved in doing a cylinder head flatness check. As for the cylinders, I would first look for any scoring. If it is there, you’ll see it as soon as the head comes off.

 

Hi Guys,

I know this has been forever but I never got around to posting an update. I actually have some good news: There was a class action lawsuit against BMW for a design defect present in the water pumps of 2007 to 2013 MINI Coopers that caused the part to fail. As a result of the water pump failure, the engines overheated and stalled in response, according to the claim.

I called the MINI dealership here in Minneapolis and asked about this and they told me to bring the car in for inspection and I had it towed there. Turned out that it was the case and they ended up doing all of the repairs which included putting in a brand new engine in the car and a new water pump. All of this for a $0 charge to me !!! How lucky did I get. I do have the paperwork and the job was about $18K including the cost of a new engine and all the labor and additional parts. WOW !!!!
Even though the car was not in warranty this particular issue has an extended warranty from the factory and they just do the repairs if the problem is in fact from the water pump.

The car has been running great since then!! Just yesterday I heard the fan staying on for longer after I shut off the car which is what I was seeing before the car stopped working the last time so I actually did go ahead and order the ScanGageII just in case. I think this is just because I've been driving it fast and its summer time but better to be safe
Here is the link to the lawsuit details :
https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-...es-settlement/

Thanks so much for all the support last year guys !! I was really in a bit of a tough spot had I to pay that $8K bill !!

 

Thanks for the update.